all we can do, my love, is hope we don't take this ship down
 j a r r i s
and at once i knew
i was not magnificent
There are so many things he has forgotten.
Memories stolen from him by the miles he walked across the desert.
The past spirited away by all the time that has passed.
Much like the tears burn the backs of her eyes, they burn his, too. He brings his forehead to rest against the gentle slope of her shoulder and allows himself this one brief moment to revel in the heat of her. She breathes and the muscles stir beneath her skin and, there at the center of her, her heart beats. Just as fiercely now as it ever did and how foolish of him not to trust that this makes her real.
Again, that rueful smile as he lifts his head and dusts his lips down the length of her beautiful face. How cruel Fate had been to bring them together – both when they were both alive and again now when there is nothing he can do but dredge up the apologies that have festered in his gut for years.
“ That was always our problem, wasn’t it?” he asks and he sighs and rests his forehead against hers. How peculiar that she should feel so real, he thinks, solid in a way he would not have expected ghosts to be. He drags in a shuddering breath then. “ You never saw how brilliant you were,” he murmurs, “ and I never tried hard enough to convince you.”
He swallows thickly and shifts his weight and it strikes him then how weary he is, how thoroughly exhausted he is from chasing all them ghosts. “I love you, Plumeria, and I hope you knew that. Even when I didn’t give you any reason to believe it, I hope you knew.”
And he does love her. How fiercely he loves her! If only in all that running he had learned how to control that bastard heart. But, for all its faults, it has always brought him home to her.
son of caden & fray
once-king of the hidden tundra
the fight for you is all I've ever known
She closes her doe-like eyes when his lips brush down her face, still so completely starved for his touch, for his voice, for his everything. There had been a time when she never had to miss him, when most of her days and nights were shared with him at her side. There had been a time when they seemed so concrete, like nothing and no one could ever come between them. She doesn’t know when that tight bond first began to fray, and she doesn’t know why, but she is certain it must have been her fault. The longer he was gone, the longer she had to sink deeper into her self-doubt, until she was drowning in it.
If she could only be prettier, smarter, sharper, maybe he would stay. Maybe he wouldn’t have to look for all the things he is missing, because she could be everything.
“I’m not brilliant,” she whispers into his neck, her voice soft but breaking now with the tears that brim the edge of her eyes before slowly trailing down her copper cheeks. She curls tighter into him, suddenly exhausted from having held herself together for all of these years. She wants so badly to just break apart, to splinter against the edges of him, but all she can manage are the silent tears and the way her body shakes to fight them back. “But I do love you. And even when everything seems so dark, I know you love me, too.” She believes it, because it’s the only way she gets by. The only way she can weather the storms and the darkness by herself – when he is with someone else, or gone entirely – is to tell herself until she believes it.
“Please stay,” there is a plea to her a voice, having disentangled herself from him so that her watery, glittering eyes can capture his. She reaches then to press her lips to the corner of his mouth, before laying her cheek against the flat of his and murmuring, “I’ve missed you so much, I just want you to stay a little longer.” I want you to stay forever, is what she wants to say, but even she knows that is too much to ask, and she could never be so selfish.
P L U M E R I A
when all of the light is gone
a single spark is all I need.
all we can do, my love, is hope we don't take this ship down
j a r r i s
and at once i knew
i was not magnificent
He does not ask her not to cry.
He pulls her closer instead, effectively eliminates all the space that separates them, exhales heat into her trembling skin.
Should she decide to cry, he will offer her a safe place to fall apart.
He will not do her the disservice of begging her to hide her emotions because it pains him to know that he has hurt her.
He refuses to allow himself this one selfish urge. Instead, he holds her close and leaves a trail of searing kisses down the crest of her neck.
“ If only that were true,” he murmurs with that same rueful smile, “ if only you were not so brilliant, you could have spared yourself all the trouble I have caused you.”
He does not remember now the first time they met, though he so desperately wishes he could. He does not even remember when and it feels like a sin. But there are so many things he does not remember, so many things the steadfast passing of time has stolen from him. But he holds her close now, while he can, and he commits every detail of her to memory and he swears to himself that he will not forget. He will not forget the way her heart beats so improbably against his chest or how the heat of her breath fans across his shoulder. He will never forget the way she has made him feel.
She knows or, at least, she claims to and this has to be enough. For now, he has no choice but to trust it. He nods, silent, and exhales another shuddering sigh. He has never given her any reason to believe it, though, has he? He has pledged himself to her time and time again and always ended up straying. He swallows thickly and shifts his weight, uncomfortable with weight and unbearable gravity of the truth.
She pulls away then and the shimmer of tears in her ears slips a blade between his ribs so that the lungs and the chest smart every time he tries to pull in a breath. “ I’m not going anywhere, Plumeria,” he murmurs and, this time, he means it with every worthless fiber of his being. “ I will stay until you have to go.” He will resist the pull of the thing that spurs him into motion as long as it takes, until she goes soft at her edges and slips from his grip. He will stay as long as it takes.
son of caden & fray
once-king of the hidden tundra
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